This activation started when a good friend of mine, Evan who owns a 41 foot cabin cruiser (Arete) offered me a trip to Santa Cruz Island (SCI). My wife Mary and I had been out with Evan a couple of times. The first was an overnight trip to Pelican Bay and Smuggler’s Cove and the other about five years ago when Mary and mutual friend Brit had hiked to Diablo Peak (SCI high point) from Lady’s Harbor. Evan stayed back with his boat. This was pre-SOTA unfortunately, but a great hike nonetheless. When Evan offered a return trip to SCI I knew there was an unactivated peak, Sierra Blanca (W6/SC-343) near the west end of the island on the south side. I took him up on the offer. I’ve spent a fair amount of time on the islands, but not much on the Nature Conservancy’s western 75% of the island. Some pics from the trip.
To access the island you are required to obtain a $35 permit which is good for 30 days from the Nature Conservancy. Easily obtainable online. The permit allows you day time only access to a fair amount of the island. There are some restricted areas but the three SOTA summits on Conservancy land are in accessible areas. The remaining unactivated summit (Alta 2 Benchmark W6/SC-270) could be done during the short Nov 2 to Jan 31 season then the northwest coast is open for access. Link to permit information and restrictions.
Brit is a licensed captain and has operated and crewed on many boats in the Santa Barbara Channel. She was again along on this trip. Unfortunately my wife Mary was unable to make the trip due to school and some part time work requirements. The plan was for three days, two nights and for all three of us to make the hike to Sierra Blanca, if conditions permitted. Wind conditions looked good for the trip. The first day out we arrived at Laguna Harbor to scope out the route that I had proposed. Everything looked promising except for the surf. Two to three foot breakers with occasional four footers. Not good for landing a skiff. After checking out our proposed beach landing we retreated east to Alamos Anchorage for the night. It was a little bumpy that night but we all got some reasonable sleep.
The following morning we pulled anchor and headed back to Laguna to check the surf conditions. Winds were calm but the shore break still had occasional four footers. Evan decided he could not make a landing with the skiff. We set anchor. Brit and I loaded all of our dry hiking clothes, packs, and my radio equipment into a couple of dry bags. Evan got us as close to shore as he comfortably could in the skiff. Adding to the difficult surf conditions, the outboard motor was consistently dying when at idle! Brit and I bailed from the skiff about 50 yards from shore. Dry bag and collapsible mast (fishing pole) in one hand and swimming with the other. We timed it as best we could but we did get smacked by a couple of three to four footers. It has been a while since I’ve been in the surf and I now remembered how it felt! We had life jackets on as well so it was not easy to get very far under the waves. Once on shore we opened the dry bags for our hiking clothes and radio. This was when I discovered my dry bag was not so dry. My soft case radio bag was wet and moist on the inside. At this point I packed my radio (Xiegu X5105) at the top of my pack so it could dry out as we hiked. It was not soaked but it was wet. My HT, a Yaesu FT-60 fared better.
The hike up to the summit was the easiest part of the trip. Once off the beach we followed a ridgeline all the way to the summit. Nothing more than class 2 and very sparse vegetation. We spotted a bald eagle in the distance on an old fence post. One island jay, and several lizards. No foxes, though we did see some scat. The summit has a benchmark (RAG 1934). Nearby is a small compact weather station (ClimaVue 50). I operated near the north end of the summit under some bishop pines for shade. Link to route.
I made three 2m FM contacts. Two were summit to summit with Lorene and Mike, W6LOR and K6STR on Magic Mountain and our reliable Jon in Torrance, NT6E. Mike and Lorene were helpful with spotting. No cellular service up there. I strung up my long 40m wire and made several 40m phone, mostly west coast California. I shortened my wire to 20m got reliable Darryl WW7D in Washington. K6STR joked about me not spotting on a CW frequency so I made a 20m attempt. I was successful with N7KOM, Tim in Oregon. Thanks for your patience!
After about 90 minutes on the summit all was packed up and we started to head down. We took the same route down. Once we reached the beach and packed our dry bags we headed east as it was low tide. Evan would not have to go as far in the skiff to pick us up. Along the way back on the beach Brit found a large whale bone. I’m still trying to figure out what bone it is. It was probably about six feet long, flat, and very heavy.
We watched the surf and waited for a lull. Evan was in the skiff waiting for us to make our move. We did time it right and did not have anything more than one or two foot waves to get through. Once in the skiff, thanks to Brit and Evan helping pull me in, we were on our way back to the boat. We spent the night in the much better protected Coches Prietos Anchorage. The following day Evan and Brit made a dive, looked for lobster (none) but did get some scallops. We pulled anchor and headed home. The back side of Santa Cruz was beautiful but once we hit the channel we bounced around quite a bit as we crossed. Thank you Evan and Brit. I owe you a bunch!
Santa Barbara County/Channel Islands